Ark Royal (the last one) (audio visual)

[Lord Dasper]

Good day all, some of you might be interested in a AV (audio visual) I made for my local camera club - Ark Royal AV intro -

Most of my family and my wife’s family are ex forces or still serving. We cover all four branches, RAF, Royal Marines, Royal Navy and the army, and as you might know, anyone who has served in the Royal Tank Regiment is the most lucky.

The Royal Navy has a program called “Family and Friends”. It’s very much like the “Bring your kids to work” idea that is used in civvy street. My youngest brother in law was at the time an aeronautical engineering officer on board the doomed ship HMS Ark Royal. On her Farwell trip we were invited to go on board for the five day trip from Glasgow (where she was de-bombed of her large ammunition, missiles, depth charges etc.) then to sail around the coast to Newcastle were she was built.

You will see the ship during a force 7 gale ( it went up to force 8 but all crew were prohibited on deck as you would be blown off the side). The master plan was to land four harrier jump jets and a few helicopter’s for the last time during this period, so that the ship would have a “show” on board when it left Newcastle and sailed to Hamburg and then onto Portsmouth to be scrapped. As you can see from one of the photographs, the planes could not land during the first two days, so did a flypast, but finally did land on day 3.

The man with the BIG video camera is a BBC documentary maker, for the tv series “Ark Royal” which was broadcasted a few months later. One photo will show a crewman on deck walking backwards at a 45 degree angle to the sea, this is not photoshoped, but displays how strong the gale was. Can you guess which Harrier pilot got a bollocking after he landed ??.

I was very impressed on how proud the crew were about their ship, and what I did not do was take any emotional photographs of people who shed a tear or two.

I hope you enjoy the AV, which was made up as an exercise for LBCC, after we had an expert talk on how to make them.
Pete Smith LBCC

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9a...RFagS-MhuA1g2g

[Bligh]

Very emotive Pete.

My Dad would have liked to see that. He was FAA. on HMS Biter in WW2.
Rob.

[Capn Duff]

I shall take a look at this one, my father was a Submariner but as I get sea sick in the bath I joined the army, you will find a few ex servicemen about here.